Missing and Messing Inspirations

(Humorous Speech 5-7 min)

“Come out of your comfort zone. Break free from the chains that shackle you.” These were the inspirational words of a Toastmaster one Friday evening. What a coincidence.I had heard those words before.In fact I heard them every morning when my roommates were begging me to come quickly out of the washroom.Out of comfort zone to wash room.Far, far away.

Fellow toastmasters and distinguished guests, good evening.
I bring before you 2 major aspects by which you can miss and mess an inspirational speech. 1) While the speech is being delivered-our thoughts can misguide us away. 2) The superficial energy we derive immediately after listening to an inspirational speech can make us muddle headed.

Let’s see what can happen while a speech is being delivered. I was listening to a very motivational speech urging us to realize our dreams. But all the while, I was pulling at my hair searching for ways on how not realize the dream I had that morning. A ferocious street dog was biting me.

My thoughts took me away from the inspirational message.
Once a speaker said that we should be bold enough to say “so what” in the face of adversity. He boomed “You may fail if you try; so what. People may laugh if you fail; so what. My defensive system boosted me to think, “Oh, this speaker is speaking so well; SO WHAT”.
My thoughts deceived me away from the inspirational message.

There was a speech titled “Treasure Hunt”. As the speaker went on, my thoughts were on a ring I had lost that morning. I was hopeful of finding it. Suddenly the speaker revealed the secret—the treasure is within you. I had a strange feeling that I had swallowed my ring. I felt a bit reassured. My ring might come out tomorrow morning.
My thoughts fooled me away from the inspirational message.

Let’s move onto the time period immediately after an inspirational speech is delivered. This is the time where you will be itching for action and can potentially jump into trouble.

One day I gave a talk to my roommate and impressed upon him the need to be more responsible in life. The next day, he was the first to reach home and he found that only our house was without electricity. He swung into action, found that the electricity bill for the last month was unpaid; traveled 10 kms; paid the bill and got a lineman to restore the connection, after paying him a bribe for good measure. They reached home and when they came to the main switch box, the lineman gave a sarcastic laugh showing all his yellow teeth and two brown ones. As my friend looked on in disbelief he casually switched on the main switch .Our house was flooded with light but my friend’s face was gloomy. Seconds later it also lit up, when he saw me coming from the provision shop carrying 2 mosquito coils, a match box and 4 candles.
At the recent judges training, I was inspired to finish off my speeches quickly and get my DTM. When I went home my mind was on speech topics, opening, body, conclusion, content and delivery. My friends were noisily chatting away and I was getting distracted. Out of habit, I yelled at them “Fellow toastmasters and distinguished guests, why don’t you keep quite”.
The superficial energy defeated me.

So, we must listen to speeches attentively and should give some time for the inspiration to sink into the bottom of our heart to bear fruits. At least if you do so, immediately after an inspirational session to be courageous, you may not go propose to any strange lady and get beaten by her husband. Or when I ask you to be straight as an arrow, you may not think “Arrow? He looks more like a bullet.”

Let’s Expand Our Horizon

(Speech )

There was a tennis coach in my school. An amazing tennis player, his name was Lovligen. One fine day he sprang a surprise on all of us. An article on him along with his photograph appeared in all the leading dailies. This tennis coach had found a formula concerning planetary motion. There was also a session in which he explained the students his findings. I couldn’t understand anything he told. I asked my physics teacher what it was all about and her face went red. Then for sure I knew the findings were complex. This tennis coach decided to expand his horizon beyond his constrained job path and in the process contributed to the complex field of physics.

Fellow toastmasters and distinguished guests, good evening…
Most of us stop learning after we exit out of college. For us the only focus would be that small segment in which we got our job. The rest of the fields will be beckoning us, our aptitude will want us to go and explore that. But still we are tied; tied by our own reasons. The reasons are aplenty; the major one being time and the consequent worry of not meeting the current job and family expectations. Sir John Lubbock a banker, politician, naturalist and an archaeologist said “In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is lacking.” Well, of course time flies is a bad news but the good news is you are the pilot.
The second reason which prompts the people to think in the negative is a thought like “If I mange to have more time, then I should spent more time with my friends, family and for leisure activities” .There isn't any need to be sticking around with them all the time to gain their love. Do we love our parents because they are with us all the 24 hours? We should think and do things useful for the advancement for the humanity and make the near and dear ones of us proud. And for the leisure activities they surely will rejuvenate us .But there is no point in continuous fuelling of a car which is never driven.
The third reason which may hold us back is the belief that knowing outside the work profile will never help me us in our career. But, we could always associate whatever things we have learnt to our work. Multidisciplinary areas are the need for the hour. Even the areas of study which we think are totally unrelated may find extraordinary utility in our domain .Those bank officials who studied computer during the nineties are the major officials in the software giants which are offering banking solutions.

After working for several years in the computer field a question struck me -“Do I know any other work if I lose this job”? The answer ‘NO’ was powerful enough to send a shivering down my spine. In that scenario I could imagine myself in a rehabilitation camp with several other techies where other jobs like rubber tapping, hair dressing, are taught. I was certain my worries were not unfound. There were instances in history where an entire class of workers was eliminated. The recent example is the class of workers called typewriters which have become a rarity these days. The cycle of recession that circles over our head can add to this fear. Even if we don’t lose our job we can engage in dual career which has become very popular in the west. The versatile Jennifer Lopez says “On my dual careers in music and film, I don’t feel frightened; I feel challenged.” She was quite successful in her music career but she challenged herself to the new task and discovered herself completely. We may also be challenged by the impending retirement. Once people retire they feel as if they have shed their wings. All of sudden we feel worthless and nothing to do. Why do politicians live longer and healthier? They are always fully engaged. We must also discover the dreams in us and give wings to them; and on retirement we will never find us wingless.But more than the symptoms and signposts that looks threatening isn't there a call from inside for all of us to know and learn about things we never came across. There is a whole lot of knowledge in this world and we don’t even bother to turn our head towards it. This ignorance is cancerous and in the process will engulf us and thwart our learning capabilities. I believe the childhood days were the best for many of us because each day we were able to know about a new thing in this world. And by this knowing a world of opportunities is opened for our progress. But now we learn nothing new apart from our work, we remain monomaniacs and our life has turned monotonous. Learning and expanding our horizon gives us that impetus to unearth a whole lot of possibilities and to be a complete human being.

Michelangelo a painter, a sculptor, an architect, a poet, and an engineer declared at the age of 80’s “I am still learning”.The dire need is staring in front us. And we will decide whether we will be able to cope to the challenges and become successful beings. The steps are to find our aptitudes, find what we can do for that and finally doing it. I went through the introspective approach to recognize my aptitude and it was human behaviour that attracted my interest. As the second step I found what all I could do and decided to get a masters' degree in psychology. I enrolled for the M.Sc in Applied psychology from Bharathiyar university in correspondence mode. Now I have completed this 2 year course and have specific goals in this field to be pursued along. The idea of expanding the horizon had unsettled me. Yet I realized its better to be a sad Aristotle than a happy mud slinging pig.I got the degree.I got the pleasant realization that I am still able to study with the same focus and agility as my college days. Moreover, I got back that wonderful unique thrill that we will have due to the tension on exam days.


Toastmasters, thousands of reasons can rain down and stop us from knowing more of this world .But to leave a legacy of our own to the mankind and to know what we have within us, we always need to sail through the darkest of the valleys and then we will reach the green pastures of self actualization. Let no talent bestowed lay latent. Let’s look inside us and find the treasures of gems that lay within, polish it, and give it to the world which has given us all. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. So, let’s be resolved to know more and no field of study shall be untouchable to us if our mind wants to make love with that stream of knowledge. Over to you toastmaster!!

(Project 10 of CC)

School Education In English Medium A Must

(Speech)
Born in a remote village, born in an average family, born with average intelligence, I stand here now with a respectable social status. There were no godfathers, there were no cheatings, there were no miracles. The only reason which makes me stand here is that I got the advantage of English- I was lucky to be sent to an English medium school as my father thought that is the best. Fellow toastmasters and distinguished guests, good evening.

I attribute my success to English medium education in school because I am aware of many individuals who are wonderfully gifted who could not even make it to my level. They could not put across their idea in English effectively. We cannot disagree that India could successfully savor the fruits of globalization as we are better educated in English. But even now the progress is hindered by the teaching of subjects in the vernacular especially the science subjects in schools. Imagine a student is taught in the vernacular. He will be taught the word ‘thricon ‘for triangle in the vernacular. Later, on college education when the medium of instruction becomes English, he will be introduced to the word triangle. Hence now he has to associate with the idea of triangle, the word in the vernacular for triangle and the word triangle itself. Things are simply complicated here. There is no point in learning that specific scientific word in the vernacular. There is huge waste of effort. And from there the children educated in English gets jobs easily and they get the global exposure. Moreover the language of English provides a genuine advantage to the Indians as a common language. As we know, people hate when some other languages are forced on them. But as English has an economic eye this aspect wouldn’t come into play. It really acts as the unifying force in the diversified culture of India.

We know about these advantage English offers.That’s why most of us send our children to English medium schools. But with the adamancy to teach in the vernacular in the state run schools the governments across India is determined to make it difficult for the poor children. But some governments are also determined to make it equally difficult to the rich as well by moving the court to ban English medium schools. How retrograde the thinking is. Local history and local art forms and the like should be taught in the vernacular only but all the subjects with global perspective should be taught in English medium. The major argument the proponents of the vernacular medium raises is that we are getting westernized. If something is good there in the west, what is the problem in imbibing it .Every civilizations have grown in that way. Let me ask those people whether they will avoid a bypass surgery as it was not part of Harappan and Indus valley civilization. We should not be diminutive in thinking like the tribal people who are still hesitant to wear clothes fearing cultural disintegration.

Don’t you want to see people from my economic background and lower to come up to you on equal footing? My father sacrificed many pleasures in life to get me that English medium education. If the government schools taught in English medium, couldn’t that situation be avoided? Well, I do agree that sacrifices make success, but is there a need to make some unreasonable hardships? If we want to see the people around us in good living conditions, we need to put our voice to our governments to impart education in English. Moreover, being the members of the ‘Toastmasters’ which aims to promote speaking abilities particularly in English, we need to be the apostles of this idea to impart education in English. Let’s evangelize this idea by using the best talents we have ,speaking and writing, with all might to open the eyes of the people and hence the governement. Lets us go back to Bengal, let’s go back to Tamil Nad, let’s go back to Bihar or wherever we are from and spread this message. Let the world be known, that the apostles of progress are coming to transform this nation into greater heights.Over to you toastmaster!!

(Project 9 of CC)

Ordinary To Extraordinary

(Master of Ceremonies-- Toastmaster Meeting on Theme 'Ordinary To Extraordinary')
There happened on Oct 2, 1869 a very very ordinary moment. A kid was born that day—a very very ordinary happening in India. But as the wheel of time turned around that same ordinary moment became extraordinary.That kid born on that day, yeah,our won Gandhiji made that moment extraordinary by his life long efforts .Yes that moment which could have gone down as yet another ordinary moment is now written in golden letters in the annals of history. In April 2003, our club witnessed an ordinary moment. A person came as a guest in our club meeting. But today as he walks in, to give a speech that will make him the first ever DTM of this club, he will make that ordinary moment in April 2003 an extraordinary moment, a historic moment. What made this dramatic change? It did not happen on one fine day when sun rose in the east. It happened by the persistent efforts of this TM over the years. Toastmasters and guests today will have this wonderful opportunity to witness this glorious occasion. But not before this ordinary guy, currently ordinary, introduces you yet another ordinary moment which became extraordinary later. Ralph C Smedely, a great visionary in 1924 in the basement of YMCA Santa Anna California made an ordinary gesture. He along with his friends started toastmasters club. Now through his efforts and efforts of lot many, toastmaster’s movement is spread across 110 countries benefiting millions of people. That moment in 1924 which could have gone down as an ordinary moment is now symbolic of success. Our future action determines whether our present step is made historic. Our Guests, you might have made an ordinary step by stepping into this room but we have extraordinary plans for you in this session like any other toastmaster session.

The Eternal Bliss

(Speech)
Exxon Valdez oil spill in which 10.8 million U.S.gallons of oil were spilled, Chernobyl accident which caused 56 direct deaths and 4,000 extra cancer deaths, Three Mile Island tragedy and the Challenger shuttle explosion – BBC Science—attributes sleep disorder as an important causation factor .

Fellow toastmasters and distinguished guests, good evening.
Haven’t many of us felt drowsy and sleepy even after having slept for more than 10 hours? Haven’t many of us have felt we have slept so little and still not able to sleep..? Haven’t many of us dedicated weekends exclusively to catch up lost sleep?

My dear friends, what matters is not the quantity of our sleep but the quality of our sleep. I shall bring to your notice 3 things that we need to do to improve the quality of our sleep and why it will improve the quality of sleep. Thereby you will be able to reduce the sleeping hours and still feel so rejuvenated after the sleep.

The first point is that sleep happens in five cycles. The first two stage makes up the initial phase, three and four make up the deep and the last stage is the Rapid eye movement stage – the stage when see dreams. For a sleep to be called successful we should have maximum deep sleep as this is the stage where the entire body gets energized. You might have even observed some illness vanishing over sleep—deep sleep is responsible for that. But before sleep if take heavy food, most of the energy will used for digestion—there will be nothing to be distributed and the deep sleep will not prolong. And if we don’t drink enough water the body will be dehydrated and the energy supply during the deep sleep will not reach the entire body. Hence to improve deep sleep we must drink a lot of water and avoid taking food that takes long to digest.

The second point is the sleep distribution through the different stages happens through cycles. As you can see in the picture, it happens in cycles. And this cycle though it will vary from individual to individual it tend remain the same for an individual until something drastic happens. What is the take home from this? Sometimes you would have felt so energetic and ready to go after you woke up. That’s because you woke during the REM stage close to the awakened state. So try to get up in the REM cycle probably during the stage after 5 hours; because the rest of the sleep doesn’t offer much value as there is hardly any deep sleep after that. By trial and error we should find the right time to wake up.

The third and last important point is our sleep is regulated by the circadian rhythm—that’s our body temperature variation. Unlike the popular belief our body temperature is not constant. When the body temperature is low we sleep. For this while we are awake we should have sunlight and when asleep it should be dark. Another aspect apart from the body temperature which determines sleep is Melatonin, the hormone which synthesized in the pineal gland and, to a lesser extent, in the retina. Melatonin is responsible for putting you to sleep. While we get sunlight, the production of melatonin is inhibited and in darkness in its production improves. So it’s quite important to get enough sunlight while we are awake and enough darkness while we sleep – because of the body temperature factor and the melatonin factor.
To conclude we must attempt three steps to improve the quality of our sleep.
1.drinking lot of water and having food easily digesteable before sleep.
2.getting up during the REM cycle.
3.getting enough sunlight while awake and sleeping in darkness.

By following these steps we can ensure that the eternal bliss we are blessed with is used for our benefit and never under used and over used.

Over to you toastmaster.

(Figures ans matter adapated from various textbooks on sleep)

(Project 8 of CC)

We Can Preach

(Speech)

“First you practice, and then you preach”. This is one of the most misused statement in the entire history of humanity.

Fellow toastmasters and distinguished guests, good evening.

Even when I am opposing this adage, I agree that this principle is applicable to the practice of existing laws. Like we cannot go and ask everyone to pay tax without ourselves paying the tax. But the concept that we ought to understand is that the principle of “First you practice, and then you preach” is applicable only to such existing laws. Nevertheless we extend it to all walks of life as a suppressing tool.If we don’t extend the usage to any other areas I see two immediate advantages: 1) It will help idea evolution 2) It can aid people to improve.

Attacking an established age old adage is not easy. My first contention is: on restricting its usage we will help idea evolution. Lets consider this.In my company, lunch is provided free of cost. But now as you know, because of the economic crisis, the company is inviting ideas from employees for cost cutting. My suggestion was to charge for the lunch. One of my colleagues who particularly likes the lunch didn’t like the idea. He said, “First you practice what you preach; pay for your lunch”. I was shell shocked. One must understand that I am ready to pay for the lunch when the company introduces it as a policy. If we are adamant on rebuking by the practice first principle, people will not dare to throw up new ideas .To appreciate better,imagine we have formed an idea totally against coco-cola. We are preaching never to have it. Now, we are in a hot desert with no water but coco-cola. What would we do? If somebody drinks coco-cola in that situation lets not question their integrity saying he doesn’t practice what he preach. Let’s not get that tough on life; let’s not get that tough on people; let’s not get that tough on ideas.

My second contention is : if we restrict from using this adage it can help improve our performance. We at the toastmasters club are the living example for this. For instance, when a trembling table topics master urges the speakers to be confident, nobody jumps up from the audience and blurts out “Hey, why don’t you first feel confident and then advice us”. Toastmasters never do that. We just take the message in its spirit and try to improve ourselves. Interestingly when the message to be confident gets accepted by the benevolent toastmasters, it gives the table topics master a positive energy to subdue fear and he will gradually improve as he feel that it is his idea not to fear behind the lectern. See the advantage we have reaped for ourselves by restricting the use of practice first before preaching principle. Apart from this I had a personal experience of this sort. A friend of mine had advised me when I lost 1 paper during engineering. I wanted to retort to her “Hey you lost six papers and you are advising me”. But as I was down and out, I hadn’t had the energy for it and kept quite. Interestingly when the next semester’s result came she came and told me “Hey Jindow, I cleared all the papers. When I advised you that day and when you accepted despite I having lost six papers, it gave me the confidence and I myself really understood the need to study well”. I was so happy and also so thankful that on the day when she advised me, I kept my ever wagging tongue under control. I still carry that joy in my heart in the same measure though it reduced a little when she introduced another guy as her boyfriend.

Remember for those people who are preaching without practice, their mind is willing but their body doesn’t permit or their circumstances constrain them. And we speak continuously on the will of our mind our body and the rest of the circumstances will succumb. Lets us not be the ones to down trod, character assassinate and throw others out of their lives. Lets keep inviting ideas and lets keep improving.Over to you toastmaster!!

Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOUxcmLT05E

The Science Of Life

(Speech)
I was deeply troubled by the problem of burping. I went to a doctor. He suggested me not to worry. “There is intake of air and it needs to be released. There are only two ways for that- one is through the mouth.” The other words of the doctor fell deaf into my ear. I had no solution for my problem.

Fellow toastmasters and distinguished guests, a form of complementary and alternative medicine called Ayurveda came to my rescue.

I shall today talk about the important influences in ayurveda, the general principle of ayurveda which states that our body constitutes of vata, pitta and kabha and finally the day to day usability of ayurveda – the science of life.

Ayurveda traces its origins to the Atharvaveda .But the methodical organization and the central concepts evolution happened under the Buddhists philosophers, especially Nagarjuna.The middle path (madhyamika) of the Buddhists led to the Ayurvedic emphasizes on moderation in food intake, sleep, sexual intercourse, and the intake of medicine

Three forces known as the three doshas or simply tridosha regulates every physiological and psychological process in a living organism. A harmonious state of the three doshas creates balance and health; an imbalance, which might be an excess or deficiency manifests as a sign or symptom of disease.

Let’s discuss more on these doshas.
1) Vata -- It is responsible for all movements in the mind and body: the movement of air in and out of the lungs, the flow of blood through the circulatory system, nutrients through the alimentary tract, and thoughts through the mind.

2) Pitta--It carries the meaning of "that which digests" and is associated with the idea of being yellow-tinged or bilious. Charaka Samhita, an ancient Ayurvedic text, teaches that pitta functions in digestion, heat production, providing color to the blood, vision, and skin luster.

3) Kabha-- derives from the Sanskrit word "shlish" which means "that which holds things together.” It governs immunity and resistance against disease.

Restoring these doshas into a balance is the technique of ayurvedic treatment Now, I shall point out certain instances where Ayurveda came to my rescue or where I personally witnessed the fruitfulness of it. I already mentioned the gastritis associated burping which I had. Black pepper, long pepper and ginger were mixed to get ‘trikatu’ which cured my gastric disorder. Four years ago when I was new to Bangalore, I was affected by jaundice. And as you know there is no effective medicine for jaundice in allopathy. The root of shoe-flower plant was grounded and mixed with butter milk. I drank this for 1 week and my bilirubin count subsided considerably. To add one more of the many instances, my mother was affected by chronic back pain for a while. She drank coffee mixed with grounded fenugreek for few months continually and she claimed remarkable improvement. Of course ayurvedic massage is also an option for this.

Hearing stuffs of this sort,people often wonder on the scientific basis of ayurveda.I have heard about my grandmother talk about her grandmother’s uncontrollable cough.She recovered from that when she drank a glass of milk for few days with a teaspoon of turmeric powder mixed in it.But the university of Mississippi Medical centre applied for patent on the use of turmeric for healing in December 1993.And of course the patent was granted.The allopathy division , infact after sometime may discover the presence of some ‘chloro fluro carbo methyl octane’ chemical in all medicinal herbs which attribute to their medicinal value.We need not wait for such a dsicovery. We have proven track record spanning centuries on the effectiveness of Ayurveda.The point is not to approach ayurveda when we require a bypass surgery but there are instances where ayurveda have proved itself like the ones I cited previously.In these cases you can fall back to the the soothing arms of ayurveda to find solace.
Over to you toastmaster.
(Reference: Various texts/scripts on Ayurveda)
(Project 7 of CC)
Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ8CvC4jj64